


The Art of Assigning Blame

by pierpressure



Series: ZKDrabbleDecember2020 [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, POV Katara (Avatar), Sibling Love, breaking shit in the royal palace, katara-kiyi bonding time, kids asking uncomfortable questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27872181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pierpressure/pseuds/pierpressure
Summary: Kiyi and Katara are left to their own devices in the palace for a day.What better way to bond than destroying thousand-year-old artifacts?Day 4: Blame It On Me
Relationships: Katara & Kiyi (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: ZKDrabbleDecember2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037616
Comments: 17
Kudos: 51
Collections: ZK Drabble December 2020





	The Art of Assigning Blame

_Zuko didn’t walk in on Kiyi and Katara while they were feeding the turtleducks at the grassy bank of the crystal-clear pond in the royal gardens._

“Katara, where do baby turtleducks come from?” Kiyi questioned, breaking off a small corner of the stale bread and dropping it in the pond.

Katara’s eyes widened and she nervously rubbed the back of her neck. Oh dear, how was she supposed to answer this? She had no clue how much Kiyi already knew about the, uh, facts of life, and Ursa and Noren were of absolutely no help to the situation. They’d been worried about leaving their daughter alone to go on such a long date, but Zuko and Katara had assured them everything would be fine and that they were capable caretakers. It was now looking like they had been right to worry. 

It didn’t help that Zuko had been called into a surprise meeting and was useless at the moment. What had originally been planned as a fun day out for Zuko, Katara, and Kiyi in the city had turned into entertaining at the palace. The grateful look in Zuko’s eyes when Katara had offered was gratifying, but not quite enough to warrant giving the flying bison-and-badgermoles talk to an seven-year-old. 

Tearing the hardened crust off of a scrap of bread in her hands, Katara stumbled to find the right words. How had her grandmonther explained it to her?

“Well, uh, you see,” she gulped noticeably and the little girl excitedly scooted closer, “when two turtleducks love each other very much, they, uh…”

“They what?” Kiyi demanded with a petulant shake of her head.

Katara didn’t know a single thing about turtleducks other than which bread they liked to eat, courtesy of Zuko. They were close enough to otter penguins, right? How was she supposed to translate otter penguins to turtleducks? 

“They build a special little house out of… dirt? And then they give each other a special kiss. That makes an egg and then the dad has to keep it warm while the mother hunts. Once the baby hatches, the dad goes to the ocean to find fish while the mom keeps the chick safe,” Katara explained hesitantly.

“Huh, that’s weird. I thought they just came from eggs. I didn’t know about that other stuff,” Kiyi announced, cocking her head to the right with a mischievous look in her eyes. 

Katara facepalmed. That entire mess of an explanation had been for nothing! Why hadn’t she thought to just say an egg?

“My brother kisses you all the time. Are you going to have a baby?”

Katara’s mouth gaped like a fish caught by a penguin seal dutifully providing for their family. 

“Uh, oh Tui and La. No, Kiyi. No! That’s not happening. Right now. It’s a special kiss. And Zuko hasn’t built me a dirt house?” she squeaked, a crimson tinge crawling onto her cheeks.

Kiyi giggled heartily and petted one of the baby ducklings near her knees. “Well, I hope he does. I wanna be an aunty!”

Katara bit her lip and smiled softly at the blatant glee in the child’s face. “Maybe one day. But do me a favor and don’t tell Zuko about this conversation.”

_Or when Katara was giving his sister braids matching her own against one of the palace’s marble pillars as they giggled and ignored anyone walking by._

“Kiyi, sit still or your hair’s going to be ruined,” Katara chided the squirming girl sitting in her lap. 

“But I’m boooooored,” Kiyi whined with a small huff, crossing her arms across her chest.

“I’m almost done. And you were the one who wanted a french braid _and_ hair loopies,” Katara reminded her with a chuckle.

Kiyi sighed dramatically as Katara’s fingers wove through her hair with the blue ribbons to tie off her work. “This takes forever. I can’t believe you do this every day. On yourself!”

“You get used to it after a while. And it wouldn’t take so long if you would stop wiggling like an angry worm,” Katara pointed out, amused by Kiyi’s theatrics. She was just as dramatic as her brother, that was for sure. 

“Who taught you how to do hair? You’re super good at it,” Kiyi chattered, starting to play with a small ball of lint she’d found rolling around the tiled floor. 

Katara smiled wistfully. “My mom. I used to sit in her lap and she’d braid my hair. Just like this.”

“That’s nice. Sounds fun. My mom isn’t very good at doing hair,” Kiyi divulged, bringing her fingers up to feel Katara’s handiwork at the crown of her head. 

The mess of KiyI’s dark hair that usually sprung free of any containment into a wild mess was now contained in a neat Water Tribe style. 

“All done. You look adorable,” Katara admired as the child spun around and tackled her into a bone-crushing hug, squealing praises without even looking at the finished product.

_It was at the worst possible moment ever that Zuko managed to walk into and join them. Obviously._

Kiyi had managed to rope Katara into a rambunctious game of bending tag. Although she’d never heard of the firebender’s game before, Katara found the rules easily adaptable to her waterbending and found herself thoroughly enjoying romping around the palace like they were both seven-year-olds. 

The childish glee was infectious, so much so that Katara didn’t notice the impending disaster that was about to befall the pair until it was too late. A small jet of fire missed it’s intended target, lighting a gaudily embroidered curtain on fire and knocking a ceramic pot off of a wooden table. Katara hastily extinguished the flickering flames consuming the curtain, but the celadon pottery shattered into unrepairable pieces of the floor, letting loose a cloud of ash. 

“Oh spirits, it’s an urn,” Katara breathed out.

She and Kiyi stood in front of a crime scene consisting of scorched walls, lightly toasted (and expensive) curtains, a puzzle of mismatched glazed pieces, and the cremated remains of a very dead person.

Zuko, possessing impeccable timing as usual, walked into the corridor at that very moment, calling out, "Kat? Kiyi?” before catching sight of the minor natural disaster the two had caused.

“Blame it on me,” Katara whispered in a low voice to Kiyi before turning to face Zuko. She was the adult here, and accepting the responsibility for destroying a priceless artifact was the right thing to do.

“I’m so sorry. I was being clumsy and it broke,” Katara announced to her boyfriend, letting Kiyi off the hook, although the guilty expression she wore didn't sell their story at all.

The left corner of Zuko’s lip quirked up slightly as he questioned, “I guess your firebending practice got out of control, huh, Katara?”

“It really was my fault, Zuko. I should have been watching her more carefully,” Katara insisted as the little girl withered under the newfound attention.

He burst out laughing and scooped his little sister into his arms with one fluid motion, mussing her new hairstyle with his fist. "Don’t worry about it, Kiyi. It was just some old, musty Fire Lord’s urn. Lu Ten and I broke the original, like, a decade ago. No big deal.”

Kiyi breathed out a sigh of relief as Zuko nonchalantly reached a hand out for Katara to hold. “Wait, then whose ashes were in there?” Katara wondered.

Zuko shrugged. “Who knows?”

**Author's Note:**

> i don't think i'll write within the limit ever. it's just not possible.
> 
> but i really love how this one-shot evolved from kiyi-katara bonding to an awkward explanation of penguin/turtleduck mating. i don't know how it happened but it did. the last entry i did for drabble december got me on the kiyi-katara kick because i have never seen any cute fluff of the two of them. (they're both headstrong gals, after all.) but i really do think katara would be amazing with her (even better than our awkward turtleduck zuko), so i made it happen! 
> 
> anyways me updating on time 4 days in a row is very weird, but i don't want to jinx it. so i am going to shut up about it.
> 
> thanks for reading/commenting/kudosing! some of y'all are just too damn nice to me like holy cow i appreciate all of you!


End file.
